Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!

Great job!

"The nightmare version of television."

—Tim and Eric themselves, in the matter of their show.

A 15-minute long Adult Swim original centered around comedians and video artists Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim, the creators of the absurdist cartoon Tom Goes to the Mayor. Known for often skirting the border between comedy and gratuitous absurdity (or worse), and also for recruiting extremely obscure, untalented, and non-telegenic performers as recurring cast members, such as James Quall, David Liebe Hart, and the late Richard Dunn, and sticking them alongside frequent cameos from well-known comedy actors. All of this comes together as what low-budget local public-access television from The Eighties and Nineties would look like if it was made by stoners.

As of 2010, the show's run has ended, replaced by the Spin-Off, Check It Out With Dr. Steve Brule.

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Tropes used in Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! include:

• Actor Allusion: During his acting seminars, Tairy Greene (played by Zach Galiafanakis) stands between two ferns.
  • Also, he says hoobastank.
• Amusing Injuries: All over the place.
  • "Road trip!" *Tim runs over Eric with a van*
  • The bloody nips song
• Award Bait Song: Both Little Dancing Man and Little Danson Man feature examples.
• Black Eyes of Evil: The Dark Man is coming! The Dark Man is coming!
• Black Comedy
• Brown Note: The Cinco i-Jammer's "i-Jammer" and "e-Bumper" settings emit tones that apparently cause seizures.
• Butt Monkey: Tim, roughly -- notice in most sketches he ends up on the short end of the stick.
• Candid Camera Prank: Parodied with Spagett and Whoopsie Goldberg.
• Catchphrase Spouting Duo
• Cloudcuckoolander: Robin Williams, in his (simulated) appearance, makes no sense and pisses off the hosts, who kick him out of their flat. He walks away, muttering "asshole..."
• Commercial Pop-Up: The Snuggler.
• Conspicuous CG: Grum from "Anniversary".
• Cringe Comedy
• The Danza: Will Forte as Will Grello.
• Distant Finale: They did this one prematurely, with a fake 50th anniversary episode.
• Dude Looks Like a Lady: Or in this case, dude's footsteps sound like a lady.
• Watch It Stoned
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The Tairy Greene Machine, which contains every work Tairy has ever done, collaborated on or been vaguely associated with.
• Eye Scream: In "Crows", Tim and Eric get their eyes pecked out by crows.
• George Lucas Throwback: Most sketches look like something out of the 80s or 90s, the era of low-budget, So Bad It's Good television.
• G-Rated Drug: The i-Jammer and eBumper, marketed towards children but appearing to be a seizure trigger/hallucinogen.
• Gross-Out Show
• Hey, It's That Guy!: See Special Guest, below. Their ability to get big names to do their show is really impressive
• Ho Yay
• Hypocrisy Nod: Pierre making fun of David Liebe Hart.
  • If this is referring to the 'Jim and Derrick' episode, the DLH expy was *not* portrayed by Ron "Pierre" Austar, but rather, another actor who never appeared elsewhere in the series.
• I Am the Trope: "I am The Snuggler."
• Invisibility: "Missing" features invisible dog-possum creatures called rascals.
• It's a Small Net After All: The Innernette.
• Kitschy Local Commercial: These are mocked to no end.
• Lightning Can Do Anything: A lightning strike reduces Ted Danson to a few inches tall in Tiny Danson Man.
• Made of Plasticine
• Metaphorgotten: Over and over again in "Universe".
• The Movie
• Mind Screw
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: The guest contestants on "Celebrity Zillions"
• Noodle Incident: "Do not send in squirrel bones. It's complicated."
• Numerological Motif: All products come from a company called Cinco and all programming airs on Channel 5.
• Once Per Episode:
  • A frame will be frozen, and "Great Job!" will be scrawled on it.
  • An ad for a Cinco brand product which is inevitably overdesigned, pointless, and most likely highly dangerous to use.
• Oscar Bait: Tairy Greene's Little Dancing Man.
• Overdrawn At the Blood Bank: Eric in "Greene Machine".
• Parody Commercial
• Parody Episode:
  • The episode "Jim and Derrick" is basically one giant mockery of MTV.
  • The episode "Comedy" is a spoof of Saturday Night Live.
• Perverse Puppet: David Liebe Hart's puppets aren't directly malevolent, but they're definitely only there to be creepy. There was also an episode in which the doll version of Tim turned evil.
• Pizza Boy Special Delivery
• Refuge in Vulgarity
• Retraux: The whole show, but The Uncle Muscles Hour especially.
• Shotacon: Pierre is apparently attracted to both little boys and their fathers.
• Similarly Named Works: "Greene Machine" features trailers for the films Little Dancing Man and Little Danson Man.
• Sketch Comedy
• Snap Back: Tim has died at least five times. In "Resurrection", David Liebe Hart even comments about how death is not a big deal for Tim. However, things don't always snap back at the end of an episode. Casey remained dead until being reanimated by his brother, but Steve Mahanahan, who died in the same explosion, came back to life with no explanation.
• Special Guest: Jeff Goldblum, Michael Cera, Paul "Pee-Wee Herman" Reubens, "Weird Al" Yankovic, Tommy Wiseau, and Mr. Show's Bob and David, among others.
  • Averted by hiring impersonators to depict Robin Williams and Steven Spielberg.
• Spell My Name with a "The": "Greene Machine" refers to shows called The Star Trek and The Cheers.
• Spin-Off: Check It Out! with Dr. Steve Brule. It's exactly what you'd expect from a Tim and Eric spinoff, for better or worse.
• Stylistic Suck: Considering what the show is already like, imagine how bad any shows within the show are.
• Surreal Humor
• Too Much Information: Many, many skits derive their humor from this, particularly anytime when Will Grello (played by Will Forte) reveals disturbed events from his childhood.
• Toilet Humor: A pair of pants that allow the wearer to avoid the bother of using the toilet. Another sketch had an invention that allowed the male user to poop using a urinal while standing the entire time. Yet another product was an adapter to use a urinal to take a shower.
  • Tim and Eric have stated their intention to have every season opener feature a diarrhea related Cinco product.
• What Do You Mean It Wasn't Made on Drugs?: Oddly enough, none of it is or was. Tim & Eric have stated that no drugs are involved in the writing or performance, but that they can certainly make viewing more enjoyable. One sketch (of them being interviewed by Michael Ian Black) parodies the idea that drugs must be involved.
  • This is not to say that Tim & Eric aren't stoners. They just weren't stoned when they make the show.